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Friday, November 7, 2008

I haven't posted any recipes lately and this one is so easy that I'm almost embarrassed at the total uncomplicatedness of it. But it is really, really good and required almost no effort at all. Do you like chicken tacos? You'll love this.

Chicken for Tacos

1 lb of chicken

1 package of taco seasoning

Wake up in the morning and put the two ingredients in a crock pot or slow cooker on low. Put just a titch of water on it so that it doesn't dry out. Let it cook all day. Eat some delicious chicken for dinner.

This recipe is my husband's friend Tony's. It is much better than roasting or baking the chicken and then adding the seasoning later. The chicken falls apart and is easy to shread. The one downside to this recipe is that the chicken is really juicy to the point of runniness. If you don't like this sort of thing, I'd suggest straining the chicken before serving.

Random Family Stuff

Kendall is progressing along well with her figure skating. She recently placed 3rd in her division (Freeskate One; she's since passed Freeskate Two) at a regional skating competition. Here she is practicing her scratch spin before the competition.

She's fast, so it's blurry.

I was running errands in the car the other day and I looked back at Will asleep in his car seat. I realized that his sweet face was changing daily and if I didn't start taking pictures, it would be lost forever in the sands of time. So here's the picture that I took of my sweet baby asleep.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Well, we have a new president. I'm not going to debate the right or wrongness of President Obama's election, nor am I going to tell you who I voted for. It's all a moot point now. However, I do want to say that I was impressed with McCain's concession speech; I can't imagine how difficult it was for him to give, after such a long time campaigning and such zeal and admiration for the office of the president and our country. I have always thought that McCain was a man with a great deal of integrity, and his speech was a reflection of that.

What touched me the most about Obama's acceptance was not his speech, however dynamic it was (you must admit, he's one dynamic speaker), but the shot of Jesse Jackson in the audience with a tear in his eye. I know, Rev. Jackson is about as controversial as they come and he's said some things lately that were, well, not that well thought out. But this is a man who participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches with Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, was made national director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by Dr. King in 1967, stood behind Dr. King during the epochal "I have a Dream" speech in DC, and was in the parking lot on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, TN when Dr. King was shot. His zeal for the civil rights movement never wavered, regardless of the criticism that he drew throughout the years. I would be willing to bet that he thought it very unlikely that he would see an African American elected to the presidency during his lifetime. But it happened. And from what I saw during the political pundit's debates and the word on the street, for the most part, it was never about whether Obama was black and how that was going to affect voter's perceptions of him, but whether he was the best candidate for president. Could this be a fulfillment of Dr King's famous words, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". It's all a bit amazing and wonderful if you ask me.

And what if McCain had been elected? I can't ignore that we would then have a female vice president, also a history maker. Remember the Mondale/Ferraro ticket? I was young, but I have distinct memories of hearing men (elders, no less) at church comment on how a woman couldn't run the country, under any circumstances. This confused me greatly being that I (a) was female, (b) knew more about politics than some of the codgers in my church, and (c) thought that kind of thinking clearly didn't gel well with what we were being taught by Pastor Ellis on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. But I digress. Yes, there were debates regarding Palin's level of experience, but they hinged on the amount of time she had spent in office and not on the fact that she was a woman. Is this a sign that the times really are a changin? Or is all of this history making merely due to the fact that the two major parties both had minorities running?

You know what? I don't care. We have an African American president, and it's about damn time. Now when we see Morgan Freeman as the president in a movie we no longer have to think "Yeah, like that will ever happen." Because it has. And it didn't happen because he was black, it happened because the American people thought him the best candidate for the job.

Monday, November 3, 2008

O. M. G. (Sorry, I hear it literally 30,000 times a day). I have found the best blog. Ever. It has made me intensely jealous and in awe at the same time. Knit Lit is the perfect amalgam of knitting, fashion, cheekiness, o.k., everything. I am a fashionista. You would really never know it looking at me. I dress well, but I don't have $300 for a t-shirt or $20,000 for a dress. I am not a Greek heiress or a Park Avenue Princess. I would love to dress in Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dresses, La Perla pretties, and Manolos; alas, I am a housewife in Ohio. Old Navy, Target, Filene's Basement, that's the way I roll. Anyhow, this amazingly wonderful to look at blog has up-to-the-minute articles (check out the article about Rodarte knits - wouldn't you just kill to have the legs to wear those tights?).

A-Mazing Rodarte knits

On the Knit Lit blog, there was a link to this next to-fab-for-words blog, Karl Lagerfeld's Guide to Life, a truly inspired faux-blog that is too fabulous. Just read it.

I don't know. He just scares me a little, that's all.

There was a time early in my knitting life when I envisioned myself the next great fashion knitter. I have always dreamed of being a designer of some kind (am considering Interior Design as next career as I right this); my grandfather who used to teach Business Sociology at what was then Columbus Technical Institute and is now Columbus State Community College once gave me a career aptitude test that gave me the most accurate personality profile of any test that I have ever taken (somewhat withdrawn, bohemian spirit, giving to a fault, yada yada) in which my top scoring profession was designer and physician came in second. But knitwear will have to be a dream, as I can't even get the leg warmers that were a present for Kendall in July done.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

A few weeks ago Will and I spent the week visiting my parents. My parents live in Columbus, which is really only a 30 minute drive (at the most) from Marysville, but that 30 minutes makes it feel like they are worlds away. The only times that I have spent time at my house since medical school were whenever something bad happened, like when my grandparents died and it was easier to stay the night there before viewing hours and the funeral. So it felt weird staying there just for a visit. I also had to get over the "I don't know where anything is and this is the house I grew up in" strangeness. But all in all it was a nice visit.

My parents, Cheryl and Mark, a little red-faced from champagne, at my wedding

Some highlights: (1) My parents got to spend lots and lots of time with Will, which they have not been able to do up until now. Do you know how horrible it is when your mother visits and your baby goes into a ballistic crying fit because she said "hello" to him? Well, that doesn't happen anymore.

(2) My mom's bed (which I slept in) is vastly more comfortable than the hand-me-down bed that we got from Tim's parents when I was pregnant. The super comfy full that we were sleeping in became too small when my belly became a continent of it's own, so we got the in-law's queen sized Seely, which was comfortable, but is now long past its expiration date. My mom called Tim after I commented on how comfortable her bed was and told her we needed a better mattress, which we didn't get, but we did get one of those foam toppers, which is HEAVEN ON EARTH. So I got a better nights sleep out of visiting my parents!

(3) I got to visit all of those mythical restaurants that I grew up eating at that have the best food in the world and that they have nothing like in Marysville. We do not have decent Chinese in this town, but on the West side of Columbus the have Ding Ho (translates "The Best" - this is from the menu), which Westsiders have been loyal to since it opened in the 1950s. They recently had to move from the groovy location that they had been in since the 60's, and, quite frankly, they Chinsese silk embroidery doesn't look quite the same in a converted Ground Round, but the egg rolls are still the best I have ever tasted. I gorged myself. It wasn't pretty.

The photo above is of some people named Mike and Treena (who I don't know but who were kind enough to post their photo on photobucket) posing behind the german people cutouts in front of Schmidt's Sausage Haus und Resteraunt. Schmidt's is a Columbus institution (and a place thet you must visit on a trip to Cowtown) located in the historic German Village (by the way, if you ever visit Columbus, be sure to check out The Book Loft, also in German Village, which is the most super cool book store in the world). Anyhow, I have a bit of the old German in me, and I grew up eating delicious German food at Schmidt's. Tim doesn't like German food, and I am forever craving weiner schnitzel and red cabbage, so I was so excited to eat here and indoctrinate Will into the wonderfulness that is Schmidt's. He ate macaroni and cheese, but it was made by a German (maybe), so that counts, doesn't it?

Will digging the red door between bites of Mac and Cheese. Schmidt's restaurant is located in the original 1886 sausage plant. The red door is a sliding door that led to the stables. BTW, this picture looks exactly like a picture of me when I was a toddler - spooky!

My parents live on the Hilltop in Columbus, a Westside community that was named one of Columbus's best places to live by this year's Columbus Monthly Magazine (read some it's interesting history here). The neighbors are nice (a lot of people that originally settled the west side were West Virginians and Kentucky transplants who came to Ohio to work at the west side GM and White Westinghouse plants, which, alas, no longer exist). The area is culturally diverse, with a large Latino, African American, and Somali population. The houses have character; all were built from 1920 to the 1970's, Cape Cods abound, stained glass windows, hardwood floors, and woodwork, Florida rooms, and fireplaces can be had for a fraction of the price of the more well known and comparable Clintonville community of Columbus. Oh, and I would be remiss not to mention the annual Hilltop Bean Dinner, the most popular methane producing event that I know of.

(4) I got some knitting done, which I don't have a lot of time for. Jo-Ann had Lion Brand Wool-Ease for $3.99 a skein, so I bought enough to work on a prayer shawl, which, yes, I am still working on. I have just reached the realization that I am a slow knitter. No way around it. So maybe in a few years my church will be able to give it to someone who needs it, after I finally get done with it. Oh, and the legwarmers that I started and put into hibernation have been discovered by Kendall who wants me to finish them. So I guess I have to get my knit on!

So I had a good visit. Hopefully I'll get to do it more often now. Yes, it might feel freakin' weird, but you can go home.